Jordan Williams, 18, recently posted a video on TikTokencouraging fellow Gen Zers to get matching tattoos as a sign of rebellion.
She stumbled across the symbol, a letter Z with a line through the center, in the comment section ofanother user's video. She thought the image seemed simple enough and universal enough to be a good fit, so sheissued a call to action to her 2,000 followers.
"OK Gen Z listen up!" Williams captioned a video of herself staring into the camera wearing a black hoodie. "What if, now hear me out...We all got a matching tattoo. As not only a symbol of unity in our generation but also as a sign of rebellion."
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The 18-second clip lit up with positive responses, as a few teens and young adults went out and got the symbolic imagepermanently inkedon their bodies, Williams told USA TODAY.At least three people got the tattoo,she said. Others went the DIY route creating makeshift tattoos at home.
Williams, a restaurant server in a small Missouri town, then went to work, covering a double shift. While she was offlinewriting downorders for pizza and mozzarella sticks, the social media response to that video took a turn for the worst.
The symbol, one person said, looked similara Nazi swastika. Williams' original videowas memeddozens,maybe hundreds of times over. Shereceived death threats and even a threatening phone call from people she didn't know.
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The German hate symbol the tattoo resemblesis called aWolfsangel and is used by neo-Nazis in Europe and the United States, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
TikTok's reputation as a source forteens to post innocent dance videos is swiftly eroding away as the apptakes on what could be a more permanent place in American culture,experts say.The app, still in the throes of a deal betweenWalmart and Oracleto stay in the U.S., is also the latest corner of the internet where peoplespread hate, racism and bigotry.Several examples exist. But sometimes, it's just a misunderstanding.
"This is the sort of a medium that we live in these days, where images and messages can be misinterpreted, and they're so supercharged with the polarization, that italmost becomes guilty until proven innocent," saidAriLightman,professor of digital media and marketing at the University of Carnegie Mellon.
In many ways, Williams represents TikTok's average user. She's young, digitally engaged, generates mounds of content and appears to have no issue exposing her life to the world. One of her previous videos was a rant about her job.
Engaging users like Williams, TikTok has surged in popularity in recent years after its parent company Bytedance took over the tween sensation Musical.ly in 2018 and branded it under a new name. The app is now used by a reported 100 million Americans – most of which are among the Generation Z population age 24 and younger.
This segment of society is growing up in an era of holding people accountable for the ideas they spread, which is sometimes grouped into cancel culture.
Williams, alarmed at the number of app notifications she was receiving at work,issued a swift video trying to explain herself.People attacked that video, too, saying it wasn't enough. Meanwhile, her follower count shot up to 23,000.
Williams made a third video a few hours later, apologizing for the mix-up. She made suggestions for people to get the tattoo changed into other Z-related symbols that didn't appearracially targeted or hurtful.The hate messages didn't stop, so she made her profile private and deleted the Gen Z tattoo-related content.
USA TODAY reached out to TikTok for comment.
Only Williams knows her true motivations behind telling people to get the tattoo. She says the incident was an accident, and that she has always written the letter Z and number 7 with stylisticlines through them.
"I want everyone to know that I am really genuinely sorry," Williams said. "It was an honest mistake. I should have done more research."
Severalpeople have since uploaded video PSAs instructing others not to get the tattoo. Some sympathize with Williams.Still, it's not the first time a trend on TikTok has been in the crossfire for racial insensitivity or outright hatred.
There have beenvideo challenges that perpetuate racial stereotypesand promoted prejudice against people with darker skin tones. There's also the troublingGeorge Floyd Challenge, which saw teens kneeling on a friend's neck reenacting how Floyd diedin police custody, a moment that sparked days of protests across the country.
There isn't much that stops the teens and young adults from posting misguided race-related contentor outright hateful messages online. There are algorithms that categorically take some content down, andreporting individual videos helps, but the most effective change starts withparents talking to their kids, experts say.
"The truth is we cannot protect our young people from this stuff, which means that parents haveto do the most difficult thing of all: Talk to your teenager," saidRabbi Abraham Cooper, directorof global social action agenda at the Simon Wiesenthal Center, a Jewish human rights organization.
"When you raise these issues, they're gonna say, 'Oh yeah. I see it all the time.' Tell your kid, 'When you see it the next time, bring me over to the screen.'"
Follow Dalvin Brown on Twitter: @Dalvin_Brown.
